Press release

Lenny Flank, the founder of the Debunk Creation mail list, issued a press release on the Dover High School Library Book donation kerfuffle.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The standards under which a science book donation made by the DebunkCreation Internet group to the Dover High School Library are being evaluated by the school board, seem to be changing from week to week, group founder Lenny Flank announced today. "The school board appears to me to be making up the rules as they go along, in order to reach a pre-determined conclusion", Flank says. On March 7, the international Internet email group donated 23 science books to the Dover High School Library. The Dover school is currently involved with legal action after passing a requirement that "intelligent design theory" be taught in its biology classrooms and accepting a donation of 60 copies of the Intelligent Design textbook "Of Pandas and People". Flank notes that, despite repeated requests, no consistent standard has been put forth by the Dover School Board for "evaluating" the group's donation of 23 science books. Initially, the board president publicly stated that the donation needed to be reviewed to make sure that the books were not "advanced academically beyond anyone's comprehension". However, after Flank pointed out that the board seemed to be suggesting that its students were too dumb to read and understand a popular science book written for a general audience, Board President Harkins apparently changed her mind and told the newspapers that the planned review "has nothing to do with student comprehension". "Huh? We're confused", says Flank. "The standards seem to be changing from week to week." Most recently, school officials declared that the books will be evaluated on the basis of whether they are "academically appropriate". This newest criterion leads Flank to remark, "I'm somewhat puzzled how anyone could question whether or not a SCIENCE book is 'academically appropriate'. As far as I am aware, science is still being taught in high schools, isn't it?" Flank also noted that there seems to be no apparent legal or procedural reason for the board's curriculum committee to be involved with the donation in the first place. "The donation was made to the LIBRARY," Flank points out, "not as any classroom text or curriculum material." Despite repeated requests, Flank says, no board member has been willing or able to cite any written board policy or procedure which requires the curriculum committee to review or approve any donations that are made to the library without using any district funds. "It certainly sounds to me," Flank concludes, "as if the curriculum committee has its own private agenda, and wants to involve itself with our donation simply to protect that agenda." The curriculum committee, Flank notes, recently accepted a donation of the Intelligent Design textbooks "Of Pandas and People", and earlier, according to published reports, had complained that the district's biology textbooks were "laced with darwinism" and needed to be "balanced" with "creationism". In a March 20 email to Board President Sheila Harkins asking about the changing standards of review, Flank states; "Quite frankly, the impression I have gotten from you so far is that you simply don't like the books we have donated because they directly challenge your pet ID "theory", that you want your pet ID "theory" to be protected from criticism, that you are not at all interested in teaching ALL SIDES of the "controversy", and that you are simply fishing around for a half-convincing reason to reject the donated books. I hope that impression is wrong."